Portable devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, and tablet computers have become more common among individuals. A large amount of data may be stored on these devices which may be needed to be backed up. Cloud computing technology may permit a user to back up their data on a remote server. The user may access the files using many devices. The user can download the files to a particular computing device by synchronizing the computing device with remote server. A synchronization application running on the computing device and the remote server can facilitate transmission of data files between the remote server and the computing device. However, the current synchronization applications are inefficient, at least in terms of consumption of computing resources for downloading the files. Typically, when a computing device is synchronized with the remote server, the synchronization application downloads all of the data files that have been added to or changed in the remote server since the computing device was last synchronized.
Downloading all of the data files that have changed or have been added since the last sync can consume significant time, e.g., if the number of data files in the remote server is large. For example, when the user synchronizes a new computing device with the remote server, the synchronization application can consume more time since all the data files have to be downloaded to the new computing device. Further, if the network connecting the user and the remote server is congested, if the available network bandwidth is low, or if the remote server is busy serving other requests, downloading all the files from the remote server can consume significant time. If the connection between the remote server and the user device breaks, the user may have to download the files again; this can be time consuming. Often, users may not backup their devices' data due to the extra effort and time involved.